Cyclone Mocha has claimed at least 41 lives in villages in Burma’s western Rakhine state, local officials told AFP on Tuesday.
• Read also: Powerful Cyclone Mocha hits Bangladesh and Burma
With winds blowing up to 195 km/h, Mocha slammed on Sunday between Sittwe, capital of Rakhine state, and Cox’s Bazar in neighboring Bangladesh.
“We can confirm that there are 17 dead,” said Karlo, administrator of the village of Bu Ma, to an AFP journalist on the spot, two days after the passage of Mocha.
“There will be other deaths, because more than a hundred people are missing,” Karlo added.
This figure is added to a count of 24 dead communicated to AFP by a chief of the neighboring locality of Khaung Doke Kar.
This leader requested anonymity fearing reprisals from the ruling junta.
The latest count established Monday by the junta reported five dead and an unspecified number of wounded.
In search of the missing
It is unclear whether any of Bu Ma’s and Khaung Doke Kar’s deaths were included in the junta’s tally.
Mocha, the biggest storm in more than a decade in the region, ravaged Rohingya villages and camps, downed trees and electricity pylons and destroyed fishing boats.
AFP was waiting on Tuesday for an updated count of the victims of Mocha, requested from a spokesperson for the junta.
On Tuesday morning, residents of Bu Ma roamed the seaside in search of relatives who had disappeared since the passage of the cyclone, AFP journalists noted.
The Muslim Rohingya minority is the target of travel restrictions inside Burma, where they live in near-apartheid conditions, according to human rights groups.
Although settled in the country for generations, most Rohingyas have no access to citizenship, health or education, in this predominantly Buddhist country that the army has governed since the coup. Status as of February 1, 2021.
At least five people died in this city and about 25 others were injured there, told AFP Ko Lin Lin, a local rescuer. It was not known if these five deaths were those counted in the balance sheet of the junta.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was seeking to confirm reports that Rohingya in displacement camps had died in the storm.
“UNHCR is saddened by reports of deaths in IDP camps in Rakhine State following Cyclone Mocha,” UNHCR said in a statement.
UNHCR is “trying to carry out detailed assessments in IDP camps and at different sites in order to get a clearer picture of the situation”, he said.
Communications were slowly recovering on Tuesday in Sittwe, home to around 150,000 people, AFP journalists found, as roads were cleared and the internet restored.
Without help or food
State media showed troops at Sittwe airport on Monday unloading planes full of aid.
But according to Rohingyas, aid has still not reached them.
“No government, no organization has come to our village,” Kyaw Swar Win, 38, told AFP, “we haven’t eaten for two days (…) we haven’t received anything and no one came to ask about us, that’s all I can say.
In recent years, improved weather forecasting and more efficient evacuations have drastically reduced the death toll from cyclones.
In 2008, cyclone Nargis devastated the Irrawaddy delta in Burma, killing at least 138,000 people.
The government at the time faced international criticism for its handling of the natural disaster, accusing it of blocking emergency aid and denying access to humanitarian workers and supplies.